Basic HTML Version
HEMISPHERES:
How is it that you have five movies
coming out this year? Have you mastered some sort of
cloning technology?
MCGREGOR:
It’s just kind of the way it went. They
aren’t coming out all at the same time, but there are
quite a few of them. I’ve been working a lot and now
I’m taking a break.
HEMISPHERES:
In
Haywire
, you play a guy who’s a
pretty nasty piece of work.
MCGREGOR:
Yeah, we based it on somebody who
shall remain nameless.
HEMISPHERES:
Give us some hints.
MCGREGOR:
You just have to look at the haircut. It’s
somebody in the private security business. That’s all
I will say.
HEMISPHERES:
Wow, now you really sound like a spy.
What was it like working with Steven Soderbergh?
MCGREGOR:
He’s so relaxed making a film. He’s
made so many that he just knows what he’s doing.
He sits on the dolly, lights the scene, rehearses the
scene, looks into the camera and then shoots the
scene. Seven or eight takes would go by without
very much direction fromhim. Then something
would happen, the scene would shi somehow,
and he’d simply say, “Let’s move on.” It was as if
he was waiting for that thing to happen on its
own, without forcing it in any way. I’ve wanted to
work with him for a long
SPEND TIME CHATTING
with success-
ful actors and you’ll hear all manner of
serious talk about how hard it was to
commit to a certain role and the deep,
dark places plumbed in service of nail-
ing it. EwanMcGregor, 40, is not like that.
He likes to work, he works a lot and he finds satisfaction
in the many roles he’s landed over the years, if not loads
of personal drama. Currently, he has five movies in play:
Perfect Sense
,
The Impossible
,
SalmonFishing in the Yemen
,
Jack the Giant Killer
and
Haywire
.
In Steven Soderbergh’s
Haywire
, out this month,
McGregor portrays a private military contractor of exe-
crable moral fiber who betrays one of his chief assets—a
gorgeous assassin played by Gina Carano—triggering an
epic confrontation. Butwhile several of thefilmsMcGregor
hasmade latelyconcernskullduggeryandcalamity, he’snot
feelingparticularlydour himself. He’s ahappy guy, living in
L.A. with his family andmaintaining a stable of the kinds
of classic motorcycles you work on as o en as you ride.
Born in Crieff, Scotland, McGregor dropped out of
high school at 16 and enrolled at London’s Guildhall
School of Music and Drama. After some dues-paying,
he broke through in 1996’s
Trainspo ing
; since then he’s
convincingly portrayedObi-Wan Kenobi in the
Star Wars
prequels, a love-struck poet in
MoulinRouge
and the loyal
if conflicted son of a man who came out late in life in
Beginners
—in addition to 40-odd other roles over 20 years.
McGregor has a reputation as a low-maintenance actor,
a working man among divas. We talked about
Haywire
,
his taste inmotorcycles, his unfortunate inability to fake
a punch and how, um, “fate” changed his life.
SHIFTING GEARS
Left, from top,
Ewan McGregor
in
Trainspotting
and
Haywire
; right,
indulging his love
of motorbikes
CONTINUED ON PAGE 126
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